”I often visited churches with my father. In a church in Uppland,
somewhere on the nave vaults,
is a work by Albertus Pictor, the famous ecclesiastical painter.
The painting depicts Death playing chess with a knight. ”
- Ingmar Bergman
Silence.
I was thinking of that this morning.
Silence.
Secrets.
Helplessness.
Gathered around the deathbed
of a family...
Silence...
broken by cries
and whispers.
Are you prepared?
Faith.
After a stumble.
After the fall.
Winter light
so dark.
When the map you have leads you to doubt ...
The silence.
When no counsel leads to comfort...
when they forage in a land
they know not ...
"What ought I to do?" I thought. "Where shall I find someone to explain it to me?"
"Listening to sermons failed to give me what I wanted, and having had my fill of
them without gaining understanding, I gave up going to hear public sermons. I settled
on another plan—by God's help to look for that teaching about unceasing prayer which drew me so urgently. For a long time I wandered through many places. I read my Bible always, and everywhere I asked whether there was not in the neighborhood a spiritual teacher, a devout and experienced guide, to be found." - The Pilgrim continues his way.
And your eyes turn towards the window pane
To the lights upon the hill
The distance seems so strange to you now...
To the lights upon the hill
The distance seems so strange to you now...
-Sting
In the beauty that is silence ... may we hear the angels sing their praise to the One who made heaven and earth:
ReplyDeletehttp://aleteia.org/2016/10/10/watch-medieval-icelandic-hymn-resounds-in-german-train-station/
My life is a Calvin Klein ad.
ReplyDeleteI loved Bergman films in my youth. I could never have enough. Now I cannot even understand them. Now I love Meet me in St Louis and White Christmas. I am happier now too!
ReplyDelete...my life is a Max Von Sydow film: like the seventh seal, hanging out on the beach conversing with Death. in the background the music playing is Highway 61... Oh one of the many benefits of getting old is that I too no longer understand hardly anything: but those images from films of our youth are really complelling, and oddly soothing, as They, at least, present the questions we ask: but now today Screens, big and small, are "the opiate of the people". remember Scenes from a Marriage ? or, Three Days of the Condor ? On another note, Charly, or, Flowers for Algernon: Cliff Robertson, upon whom I had a crush.
ReplyDeleteI live in silence now: I can listen to Mozart on my lap-top, thank God, or I would really be crazy. Silence can be really, really hard: it has been conmpelling me to greater prayer: and greater sadness, too.